Smut – the Chicago-based band of vocalist Tay Roebuck, guitarist Andrew Min, bassist/synthesist Bell Cenower, guitarist/synthesist Sam Ruschman, and drummer Aidan O’Connor – have just released their new album How the Light Felt.

On How the Light Felt, they meld the songwriting sensibilities of Oasis with the vocal delivery of the Cocteau Twins and the sensuality of Massive Attack. Where their 2020 EP Power Fantasy dipped its toe into the experimental, How the Light Felt dives head-first into Smut’s vast pool of 90s influences and takes their sound to exciting heights.

We had a chat with Tay about all things Smut, How the Light Felt, her take on the music industry and more. Read the Q&A below.

Hi Tay! How are you? For anyone discovering Smut here for the first time, please give us a bit of background on the project. How would you describe the band’s sound?

“Hello! I’m doing great, how are you? Smut has existed in some capacity for about 7-8 years and has gone through a few transformations to get to what it is today. Our band consists of 5 members: myself (Tay), Andrew on guitar, Sam on guitar and synth, Bell on bass and synth, and Aidan on drums. Our sound is very collaborative and is a mix of all our interests. Mostly grounded in our mutual love for 90s music but spanning genres like rock, pop, shoegaze, and trip hop.”

You’ve just released your new album How the Light Felt. The LP is largely about the death of your sister. How does it feel to have such a personal record out in the world? What do hope listeners will take away from it?

“The album is largely about my little sister’s passing, and sort of travels through the grief process with different facets of grief being explored. When someone dies the world goes on, and what I write about hopefully taps into the subtleties of that. There are songs about finding her photos, songs about feeling disconnected from friends, songs about the anger that comes with loss and songs about the bittersweet realizations that the pain has finally started to wane. Having an album this personal is very difficult because it’s not something people like to talk about or in some cases hear, but the album is for the people who like me live in that loneliness. To maybe feel like someone out there understands.”

Please take us through your songwriting/creative process for How the Light Felt. Did you doing anything differently this time around compared to previous releases? What was your favourite part and what did you find most challenging?

“The album was written over a long period of time, I think considering the life experiences I was going through at the time the lyrics had no choice but to reflect a mood that we had never really tapped into on previous songs. We held onto the songs for a couple years until we signed with Bayonet Records immediately before the pandemic hit. So our recording process had an actual budget for the first time and gave us the ability to experiment and take our time considering the world was unfortunately at a standstill. The hardest part was that uncertainty of whether or not the world would end! The most fun was just being able to pursue our passion during that time. We would’ve been so frustrated and defeated if we didn’t have the album to drive us and give us levity.”

What’s next for you guys? We see you have some gigs coming up. What can we expect from a Smut show?

“Well our album is out now and we are going on a tour! We are so excited for people to hear it because we really put everything we could into this album and love playing it. Our live shows are a good time, I will say some of the live versions of these songs are a bit upbeat compared to the recordings. We don’t want people getting sad at a show unless they really want to be. It’s a fun time for sure.”

Finally, if there was just one thing you could change about the music industry, what would it be and why?

“If you think about every major icon in music history (Nirvana, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, etc) what they have in common is that they started with close to nothing. Every cultural movement in American history is forged by those who have the least and that to me is the obvious reason we’ve been for the most part deprived of a new icon. If the music industry could give chances to people who actually have something to say (those facing oppression and poverty) the world could change. That’s why hip hop is leaps and bounds more creative, experimental, and culturally important. Because the voice is given in part to the people. Basically, privilege and wealth giving privilege and wealth more privilege and wealth makes for boring music.”